Sins of the Youth - His father's Son
by nurzubesuch
Summary: Digging Jack. Jack the Digger. The dirty Jack. No matter what they call him, it always comes down to gruesome and most of all unsolved crimes. A case from Henry's past, one that Shawn barely remembers, but he's determined to solve it, where Henry couldn't. Only this time he might find a truth that's too hard to bear. One that goes down to the very core of his own soul.
1. Indian Summer

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of this**

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**Sins of the youth – his father´s son**

**Indian Summer**

They called it Indian Summer, at least in some places of the United States. Not quiet in Santa Barbara though, but Shawn was sure that there had been Indians in this area once too. Of course they were, they´d been everywhere before the white people had come here, so why shouldn´t there be an Indian Summer in Santa Barbara too? It sure felt like one. Warm sunny days, under a blue bright sky and cold chilly nights, with crawling ground mist. And the leaves were red as blood.

Of course Shawn couldn´t see the color right now, it was too dark already. His mom had forbidden him to go out that late, scared for his safety, after these last two murders that had happened in the big park in the middle of town. But he´d felt restless so he´d snuck out anyway. He´d asked his father to tell him about the case, but Henry had refused to share information. Allegedly the case was too gruesome for a fifteen year old. As if.

Shawn would have loved to see the crime scenes. Not that he was a rubbernecker like all the other people who tended to gather around a crime scene, when something bad happened. But after all that his father had forced him to learn about police work, it would have been interesting to see those specific murder scenes, to see how the police was treating them, how his father really worked when he was on the job.

But of course he wouldn´t let him. So Shawn was walking at night, his hands in his pockets, not even thinking about any form of danger he might be in, be it the trouble he would get with his mother when she found out he´d climbed out of the window – that wouldn´t happen, he´d locked his door and put on some music – or the danger a young teen like him might be in if someone should attack him from behind and drag him into a dark, even darker corner of the park. And there were many of those dark corners.

Shawn eyed them with great interest, always expecting to see something. Something suspicious, something lurking, or maybe just a hobo, snoring in the cold of the night, trying not to freeze by slinging an old wool blanket around himself.

But Shawn saw no one, not even a hobo. He was perfectly alone in the park, his only companion the crawling white fog that was snuggling around his feet.

After a while of walking through that quiet and unrevealing darkness of the park, he turned back and headed home again. The next day another girl was found murdered, not too far from where he´d been walking. Her throat was slit and her body half buried, just like the others, only her head looking out like a grotesque gravestone. The newspapers declared: "Digging Jack hit once again."

**...**

Today:

When Henry Spencer enters the chief´s office, he expects to get his instructions, just like always when she calls him in. A new case maybe, or something else he´s supposed to take care of for her. But this time it´s different. Her face is different.

"Please, Henry, close the door." she says and it is her tone that makes him shiver, more even than her face. She´s so serious. More even than usual. Something´s up, he just knows that. And he isn´t sure he will like what he´s about to hear.

"What´s the matter, Karen?" he asks her, and the concern is evident in his voice, no matter how hard he tries not to let it shine through.

And there´s only this look in her eyes, her face gray with something that makes his blood run cold. Oh no, he thinks with dread. Please, don´t let it be Shawn. Please don´t say something happened to him.

But he doesn´t get a chance to vocalize his fears. Karen hands him a file, a report actually, with a small photo attached to it.

"It happened again." is all she says.

Henry regards the picture, doesn´t even need to read the report, and his heart stops for a moment. The picture shows a young woman, dead, buried in the ground to her chin, her throat obviously slit, from ear to ear. And he immediately remembers.

Just like the others, is all he can think. Just like all the others. Only that had been twenty years ago.

He stares at the chief and she looks right back at him, almost sympathetic, as if he´d known the victim. Henry feels rage in his chest.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks grimly.

"What do you want to do?" she asks him right back.

Henry grits his teeth. "You know exactly what I want to do. I want to go out there and bust this son of a bitch, with my bare hands if necessary. He made me and the whole police of Santa Barbara ridiculous back in the days and we could never catch him. Now he´s back, obviously trying … to mock us again." He stops himself, taking a step back and silently counts to three. "But this is your call, not mine." he finishes.

Karen lowers her eyes, for a moment. "It was your case." she states, matter of factly. "You have first hand knowledge about it. I´ll allow you to work it again. With Lassiter. You´ll be under his command."

"I understand."

"Do whatever it takes to bust the son of a bitch."

Henry only nods, and leaves the office.

**...**

The first thing Gus hears, when he enters the Psych office, is Shawn´s quiet snoring. He sits in his chair, leaning back, feet on the table and hands neatly folded on his belly. Gus furrows his brow, and throws the door shut, to wake him up.

It works. Shawn flinches, halfway through a long deep snoring and his feet tumble off the table. The rest of him almost follows them to the ground.

"Shawn!" Gus cries, ignoring his friend´s startled expression.

"God, Gus!" the fake psychic cries, clinging to the armrests with both hands. "You scared the living snot out of me. What the heck is the matter with you?"

"That´s the matter with me." Gus cries and furiously throws the newspaper down on the desk.

Shawn blinks, still fighting the cobwebs in his brain, and tries his best to read the head article.

"Jack the Digger back from the dead."

Gus can actually see how long it takes him to take in what these words mean. Eventually he grabs the paper, without a word, and starts reading, for real this time.

"A serial killer?" he asks, tongue still sluggish with sleep. "But last nights victim was the first. How does that fit, mathematically?"

Gus is irritated for a second, almost shocked.

"Shawn. Are you seriously fooling around? Now? At this?"

He´s only earning a glance from Shawn, over the rim of the paper. A frown.

"It´s happening again, Shawn."

But Shawn is still frowning, thinking deeply.

"Don´t you remember?" Gus cries, almost shouts at him.

"What am I supposed to remember?"

Gus shakes his head, irritated. "Are you kidding me? The Digging Jack? Fall of 1991. It was your Dad´s case."

Again Shawn frowns, even deeper now. "Really?"

"You can´t seriously have forgotten about that." Shawn takes a moment to remember, and fails. Gus can see it written all over his face. This is unbelievable. He knows that Shawn has a bad memory sometimes, especially when it comes to things he rather wants to forget, like a childhood he´d been forced to spend with a father like Henry. But this …

"My dad´s case, you say?" Shawn murmurs. When Gus doesn´t respond, he shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, I guess if it _was_ his case, he´ll want us to work on it. We should head for the station."

And as if it wants to prove him right, his cell phone starts to ring. He takes it and holds it up for Gus to see. Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen. Gus rolls his eyes.

"Dad." Shawn answers without waiting for a word from the caller. "Aha. On it. We´re over in a minute. Okay, let´s say in … hello? Dad?"

He looks at the silent phone with a disapproving frown.

"Let´s go." is all Gus says. This is going to be a long week.

**...**

When they reach the morgue, around half an hour later, the rest of the team is already assembled around the body. Lassiter, Juliet, Henry and of course, Woody, the goodnatured coroner. Shawn meets the eyes of his father, for a second, and what he sees there tells him without a doubt now, that Gus had been right. This case must have been his, back in the days. A gloomy look like that is strictly reserved for cases like that.

Cases that hit too close to home for comfort. Cases that leave you with a feeling of dread, because you could never really solve them. Cases that haunt you, even in your dreams.

Shawn had some of them too, so he actually can understand how his father feels. For a change. He throws a glance at the dead girl, and thinks that she looks kinda familiar, though he can´t place her. Maybe he dated her once, some years ago, before he got serious with Jules? But he isn´t sure. Man, that´d be creepy, wouldn´t it be?

"Emily Thompson." Woody tells them, starting his speech, as if he truly just waited for them to arrive. "As you all can see very clearly, the cause of death is a slit throat. Very deeply slit, almost to the spine."

"From behind." Lassiter grumbles.

"I´d most certainly say so." Woody agrees, way too lighthearted for the detective´s taste.

"Yeah, that´s exactly how he used to do it." Henry remembers, and Shawn is sure he has the bitter taste of bile in his mouth at the thought.

"Any traces?" Lassiter wants to know. "DNA, hair, blood under her nails from the fight?"

"No." Woody answers shortly, and when Lassiter blinks, he adds: "Unbelievable but except for the dirt he buried her in, there is nothing on her. The blood is her own, no other DNA … she didn´t get a chance to fight him. So he either attacked her from behind, and slit her at once, or …"

"Or she was unconscious." Juliet finishes the sentence. Her eyes never leave the body before her. And for the first time, regarding her heavy voice, Woody seems to get serious too.

"Any traces of GHB or other drugs?" Juliet finally glances up.

"No. But of course there are substances that can´t be traced. He might have given her something we can´t find."

"No." Henry grumbles. "He never used anything else but his knife and his shovel."

"How do you want to know?" Lassiter demands to know. "Twenty years ago they didn´t have the tests we have today."

"He´s right, dad." Shawn agrees, supporting the detective for a change. "Times are changing and not even you can stop the progress of technology."

"All right, Sherlock. Then tell me what you think. Any `visions´ you get on the case?"

"Not yet. Although if I would have been out there last night, to stalk and kill a woman to halfway bury her afterward, I´d have taken a caterpillar with me. Seriously. It´s freezing at night."

"That´s true." Gus agrees inbetween.

"And the ground will be hard like marble." Shawn looks at his father. "Am I right? I mean you´re the experienced gardener here."

"You´re right, Shawn." Henry nods. "But he buried her in the park, in the newly dug flower beds. He didn´t have to do too much hard work."

"Then there should be footprints of him." Gus mentions, smartly.

"No." Jules shakes her head. "Not even of her. The area was swept."

"And no one found anything."

"Swept in the sense of cleaned of traces." Henry specifies. "Digging Jack used to sweep the earth around his victims, so he wouldn´t leave any footsteps. We always suspected that he had experience with things like that. Maybe he got arrested once after he left footprints."

"Or …" Gus adds. "He works for the police … or any other department of the force."

For a moment everybody just looks at him, making him slightly uncomfortable. Shawn can see in his father´s eyes that this thought was something they didn´t even consider back in the days, and he has to chuckle. Of course. No cop would ever do something as gruesome as this. Not one of us. Never. The good old days.

Next to him Lassiter frowns. "You know what." he speaks up. "I think I remember another case like this."

"Another case like this?" Henry repeats.

"Yeah. Ten years ago. Not in Santa Barbara but in Ohio."

"What?" Shawn laughs.

"How do you know what´s going on in Ohio?" Henry asks.

"I´ve been studying serial killer cases very intently for a while, and I think there was one that resembles almost to the detail, what we have here. Yeah, it was in 2001. The Ohio River area. Three women were murdered and buried, only their heads looking out, as if to mock the police. They called it the headstone killings."

Gus makes a noise of utter disgust. "That´s inappropriate." he says. "And cruel."

Shawn barely hears him. He´s started to think, to remember.

"Shawn, does that tell you something?" Juliet asks, her head askew to see him past her partner.

"I´m not sure." he mumbles. "But I think I worked in a zoo in Ohio at the time. Yeah, I´m pretty sure I took care of the zebras."

"You were there?" Lassiter snaps.

"Why didn´t you say anything?" Henry demands to know.

"I just did."

"I mean back then." his father bellows. "There are murders that are done with the same MO like the case I worked on ten years earlier and you don´t tell me that?"

"Well, maybe if you would have shared more of the stuff with me that you were doing at work, I would have seen a connection." Shawn retorts. "But you didn´t."

"You were a kid. Was I supposed to tell you in what gruesome ways these girls had been killed?"

For a moment Shawn doesn´t know what else to say. He´s angry, even more because he knows his father is right. But of course he can´t admit that now. That wouldn´t be like him, now would it?

Henry´s shoulders slump, under the stare of everybody around him. Eventually he huffs.

"Still you could have mentioned that there was a serial killer on the loose, kid."

Shawn chuckles. "I´m sorry that I figured it would somehow spoil the post card. How does that sound? Weather´s great, food´s yummy, oh and by the way. Another girl was brutally murdered tonight. What´s up at home?"

"Okay, skip that." Lassiter demands at last. "But when you heard the news, you should have told us right away, about that case near your working place ten years ago. One that was so much alike this one."

Shawn raises his finger. "First. I didn´t hear the news. I was very tired this forenoon, since I watched Secret Window last night. Second." and here he stops, shaking his head: "To be honest … I´d totally forgotten about that … until now."

"You´d forgotten about this AND your dad´s case in the 90s?" Gus asks him. "What´s wrong with your memory?"

"Dunno. Maybe I´m getting old."

"Stupid." Lassiter grumbles. "The fact that these murders always happen around you, is no coincidence. Maybe someone from Henry´s past has a grudge against you."

"Or …"

After that they all stare at him for a moment, until Jules breaks the silence: "You think it could have been Yin?"

"Yin is dead." Lassiter recalls. "And Yang´s in prison."

For a moment they all hesitate, thinking: Is she? But then they all decide simultaneously, that this thought is ridiculous. Of course she didn´t break out. Still Shawn is sure Lassie will check this out as soon as they´re done here. And if he won´t, Jules will. And if she won´t, his dad will. But he´s sure Yang is not the killer. She never killed anyone. Except for Yin, but that´s another story.

"Maybe it´s someone related to the Yin-Yang case anyway." Lassiter goes on. "A family member, or a friend of them, who wants revenge. We should check this out."

"It could as well be someone from Shawn´s past." Gus mentions, earning a glance from Shawn.

"Thanks for the nightmares, buddy."

"He´s right." Juliet agrees. "Is there anyone that comes to your mind that could have done something like that?"

"A gruesome and disturbing personality? Quite a lot. But able to murder like that, plus stalking me while doing so?" he pretends to think for a moment, and then shakes his head. "Nope. No one."

"Try to remember anyway." Henry orders. "Especially what happened in Ohio. Juliet will help you. Lassiter and I will have a look into the files of Yin and Yang.

Shawn doesn´t say anything, just nods obediently.


	2. Fall from Innocence

**Just a brief word before we go on. To everyone who´s reading. This is not supposed to be a Comedy story. It´s serious. Like dead serious. If you want to read something funny and more true to Psych, I suggest you read something else. Everyone else … just have fun with the lack of fun.**

**Also the title of this chapter is taken directly from Stephen King´s Different Seasons. No Copyright infringement intented. Only a loving reference, sinse I was in love with this title ever since I first lay eyes on it.**

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**Fall from Innocence**

The moon was full in the sky, as Shawn walked down the path. The park lay quiet and peacefully before him, and the chilly night-air blew lazily around his head, cooling the headache he felt, just a little. It didn´t help much. Not as much as he´d hoped, when he´d come out here. But it was better than to lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

Usually it helped him to feel better, just to take a walk. Only he usually didn´t take walks that long. His apartment was miles from here, in another quarter. Why he´d come here to this park, instead of just walking around his building for a while, was beyond him. But he was here now, so it didn´t really matter. Did it?

The night was quiet and in all honestly, really beautiful. The silence all around him, made him feel free. More even than sitting on his Norton, driving down the highway. It was a feeling as if he was really truly one with the night. Like in an old Indian legend, when the warrior became one with the spirits. Or maybe it was the hunter who felt this connection? A connection that helped him to find his pray. Something animalistic, to sharpen his senses.

Shawn chuckled. Where did these strange thoughts sometimes come from? He had no idea. Gus would have freaked out if he´d known.

But Gus was in Santa Barbara, far far away from Ohio, probably learning for his final exams, to finally be a … what? Pharmaceutical salesman? Despite how lame that sounded, Shawn sent his best wishes out into the night, for his friend to make it, past his worries to fail. Shawn just knew he wouldn´t. And neither would he. No, he thought, a strange calmness taking over his mind. No, he wouldn´t fail. Not tonight, he wouldn´t.

He smiled up at the pale moon, and when the sound of faint footsteps sounded from up the path, he took a long deep breath, and just kept walking. No, he´d never fail. No matter what his father thought. There was no way he ever would.

**...**

Today:

"I´ve got the files from the case in Ohio ten years ago." Juliet tells him, sitting down with him. Her face is dark, and there´s a heavy tone in her voice, when she tells him: "The first murder happened at the same time as this one. To the day. Same with the first murder twenty years ago, here in Santa Barbara."

"Wow." Shawn exclaims, not knowing what else to say. "That´s creepy."

Jules only nods, in agreement, and opens the file. She shows him the reports and the photos. It all looks familiar and strange the same time.

Ten years ago, before he came back to Santa Barbara, Shawn had nothing to do with crime solving, so he´d had nothing to do with this case in Ohio. But now that he looks at the information, it all starts to come back to him, slowly.

"I think I knew the second victim." he mumbles when he recognizes the face on the photo.

Of course he remembers her with more color and open eyes. Alive, not slashed to death by a knife, cut over her throat. Her name was Emily, he believes to remember. Emily … something.

Juliet´s eyes go wide at his revelation. "What?" she cries, in total shock, and Shawn is too numb to try and calm her down.

"I dated her." he hears himself tell her, and the memory of it all seems too much, even for him. God, he´d dated a murder victim.

"Once." he remembers, talking more to himself than to Jules. "I thought she didn´t call back because …" he shrugs. "Didn´t bother me too much."

But now that he looks at her photo, pale and dead. A body. He shakes his head.

"Dammit."

"Emily Eames." Jules reads the full name from the file, and she gives him a quizzical look. "You know anything about her private life?" she asks. "If she had any enemies?"

"No." he shakes his head. "I met her in the zoo, while I was feeding the zebras. She was cute, that´s all I was interested in at the time."

On the spur of the moment, he grabs the other two files, and looks at the photos. What looked only halfway familiar earlier becomes clearer now. The third victim was someone he´d known too.

"She was the girlfriend of a colleague of mine." he tells Jules. "Uhm … Anna? I´m not sure. I only saw her once, when she picked him up from work. They were in the process of breaking up at the time. When I never saw her again, I assumed they´d broken up."

"He didn´t say anything about her being a victim?"

"No. Didn´t even look very sad."

"What was his name?"

Shawn tries to remember. "Hank." he then says. "Hank …. Camilla? Or something like that. The name sounded Italian, that´s what I remember."

"Okay." Jules writes the name down, promising to check it out. "What about the first victim?" she then asks him. "Does she look familiar?"

And he can tell that she is afraid of the answer. She´s afraid the answer could be yes. That Lassiter could have been right and someone really was after him, killing only girls that he´d had contact with.

But this time Shawn has to shrug, can only shake his head. He can´t remember her face. Her hair, long brown curls look familiar but many women have such hair so it´s not really anything to point out. He probably never met her. And that would be the best, because the fact that he´d known two of three victims is already starting to freak him out. Man, does that mean he really has a stalking serial killer? Someone who kills off people around him, just for the fun of it? Or to send him – or maybe Henry – a message?

Jules suddenly reaches out a hand to cover his, squeezing reassuringly. Until this moment, he hasn´t even realized how cold his hands have gone. But now that her warm skin is over his, he feels it. Shit, this is messed up.

"We´ll find out who did this." she promises and somehow he manages a smile for her.

**...**

In the end Juliet´s research on Hank Camilleri – that´s his real name – stops dead in a big heap of nothing. As it turns out, their first real suspect in this case has died in a car crash only three years ago. So he´s off the list and their hunt for the real killer once again, dry like old bones. Even if he´d been the one doing the killings back then, Shawn thinks, the only way for him to be responsible now, would be, if someone would be copying him. But that sounds too far fetched even for Shawn.

The fake psychic sighs in frustration. He´d been so sure.

"He didn´t shed a single tear when his date died." he recalls once again, but the facts are clear. It´s not him. Dead men don´t kill living girls. Not outside of George Romero´s Night of the living Dead.

"Would you cry when you found one of your dates dead the next day?" Juliet asks him. "I mean if you would have known."

Shawn looks at her, hesitating. "Well … not exactly cry." he stutters. "But most of my dates I only dated … once."

"Hmhm." Juliet nods. "Makes me wonder how you could stay so persistent to ask me for a date all these years."

That finally makes him smile again. "Well." he turns to her. "I guess the one and only is something you only meet once in a life."

Her smile is as sweet as honey and so is the kiss they share. Something small but so much more value. And it almost makes him forget the knot in his stomach, for a moment. Almost.

**...**

In that night Shawn dreams about his time in Ohio. He wanders through the zoo at bright daylight, shoving a pushcart full of hay to feed the zebras with it. He passes tourist groups of laughing kids with their mothers and the compound of the giant hamsters. One of them is jumping out of it´s cave like a raging bear, and Shawn gets a little scared that it will jump over the fence and attack him. But it doesn´t even look at him and at the top of the hill it stops jumping and only roars over the area.

Shawn´s heart is hammering and he has to force himself to keep going. Why do they surround an area that keeps such big animals with such small fences he wonders.

He reaches the gate and walks out. The pushing cart has mysteriously vanished somewhere on his way to the front and now he has to run an errand for his boss, so he drives into the city, on a toilette bowl. He parks it behind the mall, between a dark blue Crown Vic and a small light blue Toyota Echo.

When he gets off of the john, a woman walks by and eyes it with great interest. She asks him where she can get such a thing but right in this moment he can´t even tell her. It´s borrowed, he tells her and makes his way into the mall.

As soon as he´s inside, he sees a nice girl. Emily. He recognizes her. They talk for a while about how American doctors advice the population on how to perfectly use the bathroom when you´re between twenty and twenty-five. Shawn is convinced to just let it run is the easiest and also the best way, but Emily tells him he´s wrong.

She doesn´t get the chance to tell him the right way though, because the management of the mall announces over loudspeaker that the mall will be closed now, because of the curfew the police has imposed. When Shawn leaves the mall through the front door, it´s already dark outside.

He´s not outside the mall though. He´s in the park at once, trying to cross through it as fast as possible. The curfew is set for sundown and if anyone finds him walking around in the dark without a hall pass they will put him in jail. Because that´s the sanction for walking in the dark. Guantanamo. Everybody knows it and so he´s the only one who´s out here that late.

He walks and walks and somewhere on the way the park has turned into a deep forest. When he reaches the end of it, there´s a depression and he slides down the slope. Somewhere ahead he sees someone working on the field, breaking up the soil with a rake. The closer he gets to the person the better he can see that it is not a man but a boy. When he reaches him, the boy stops with his gardening and turns around to him. And Shawn sees himself, with fifteen.

"What are you doing here?" he asks the kid and the kid smiles.

"Digging." he says and he holds out his rake for Shawn to take it. "You want to try it? It´s fun. And I could use some help here."

Shawn is unsure. He wants to reach out for the rake but before he can do so, he wakes up, from the sound of the door. Gus has walked into the psych office, once again.

Shawn doesn´t know why it is so important, but he wishes Gus would have waited a few more minutes before coming in. Because if he´d had the chance, he would have reached out for the rake and even though Shawn doesn´t know why it is so important, he can feel that it is.

Gus walks in, and immediately his gaze drops to the ground with a disapproving frown.

"Shawn." he cries.

"What?"

"Can´t you just wipe your feet before you get in here? You carried at least two pounds of dirt in here."

Shawn opens his eyes a little wider, trying to ignore the sandpaper his dry eyelids have become, and stretches his neck a little, to look over the desk. Gus is right. The floor is dirty, where he´s walked in.

"Sorry, dude." Shawn lets himself fall back into the chair, exhausted. "I took a walk last night, to clear my head."

"You slept here?"

"Seems so."

Gus groans quietly, exasperated. "You should at least sleep on the couch, not in your chair. It´s bad for the neck."

"I´ll think of that next time I fall asleep without planning it." Shawn groans and stretches his aching neck. It cracks under his hand and Gus winces at the sound, halting in his sweeping of the floor.

**...**

About half an hour later a call comes in, from Henry. Another body has been found. At the cliffs. A young woman of twenty-nine, her throat slit, almost decapitated. Not even the angle in which her body got buried, has helped to keep the head from falling backwards, as if she tried to look into the sky. An old man has found her in the morning, while taking a walk. He had to be brought to hospital, suffering from a shock.

When Shawn and Gus reach the crime scene, Gus stays behind, keeping his distance from the gruesome sight. Shawn on the other hand can´t keep himself from looking, looking closely. There are so many things he notices at once. The way the wound on her neck is ripped in many places, as if the killer had not just slit her throat but sawed into it. He probably tried to get the head off for good and failed.

He also notices the faint rills all around the victim, in the ground, as if the place has been swept with a broom. So that´s how he´s doing it, Shawn muses. Not that the CSI dudes haven´t deducted that by then, and as if that isn´t exactly what Henry has told them about the case from twenty years ago. But this is the first time Shawn sees it with his very own eyes, that he stands right where the killer has been when he did this. And somehow seeing it for real makes it more … real.

All the sudden he recalls the image from his dream again, where his younger self stood on that field, with the rake in his hands. The ground in this dream had not looked like it had been raked, it had looked like this. Like it was swept. Weird.

"That´s how the crime scenes in Ohio looked like." he murmurs, more to himself than to the others.

Still they hear him, and they frown.

"What? How do you know?" Lassiter wants to know. "I though you were not there at the crime scenes."

"I wasn´t." Shawn admits, shrugging, unsure himself why he´s said this. Or how he can remember it for that matter.

"I … saw it in a vision." he says, to at least have an explanation, and halfheartedly he raises his hand to his head. "Last night."

Lassiter narrows his eyes, suspiciously, but lets him be. Instead he turns to the victim in the ground.

"Ever saw her?" he asks and Shawn doesn´t need to ask him why he wants to know that. He simply shakes his head.

Lassiter nods.

"The Yin-Yang case didn´t reveal anything either." he tells him. "There´s no one dedicated enough to this family that would fall under the category for something like that."

"Except for Alison, you mean?"

"But she´s still in prison." Juliet recalls and of course she´s right.

"That means we´ve got to focus on you again." Lassiter goes on. "Was there anyone in Ohio you came across that had knowledge of crime solving? One of your colleagues at the zoo?"

"Other than me you mean?" Shawn beams at his father but only earns himself a dark glare.

"This isn´t funny, Shawn." Henry snaps. "Focus."

"No." Shawn answers, after a moment. "I … I don´t know. I never asked any of them if they knew such things. I mean …" he tries to laugh but it somehow won´t come out the right way. It doesn´t feel like a real laughter.

"What about your school mates?" Juliet asks now. "Did you remember anything over the last two days? Anyone that might have followed you to Ohio."

Again Shawn can´t do anything but shake his head. "I … kinda couldn´t think about that lately. As if my mind refused to go back in time."

Again he receives strange frowns from everybody.

"Well, you better make your mind overcome that block." Lassiter demands. "We need some answers."

"Don´t worry." Gus says, stepping to Shawn´s side. "I´ll help him. We´ll look into our year books and take a walk down memory lane."

Shawn only nods. That sounds like a good idea. It really does. Then why, he wonders, is he so goddamn scared of the idea?


	3. A Walk down Memory Lane

**A Walk down Memory Lane**

Two nights before Shawn would sit down with his friend, to have this walk down memory lane, before the idea about this walk down memory lane had even been an idea, Shawn was outside, sometime around midnight, taking a walk, to clear his mind.

All this talk about his dad´s old case, had made him feel dizzy these last few days. All these strange memories flooding his brain. Memories he hadn´t even known, he´d had. What did the shrinkers call it? Suppressed memories? Self protection? Maybe he´d seen something back in the days, something his consciousness didn´t want to remember. Maybe he´d seen the killer. Had he? Had he?

He looked up from his musing, never slowing down his pace, and realized where he was. The beach promenade was so abandoned at this time of the night, he almost didn´t recognize it. But he surely recognized his dad´s house. The house he´d grown up in. His childhood home.

Had it been here? Had it been somewhere else? When he´d seen whatever it had been, that had been too much for his young mind? If that was what actually did happen. Shawn realized he wasn´t sure anymore. And the mere idea of not knowing anything, a crucial part of your own life, your very soul, was frightening. Would he ever know?

After a while of just staring, he kept moving, walking down the rest of the way. The Psych office was closer than his apartment.

**...**

Today:

They´ve driven home right after the crime scene, settling down at Shawn´s place, a whole bunch of year books on the coffee table before them. Shawn has been looking at these pictures for hours, and slowly his eyes are starting to hurt.

Even though it has been fun to remember all these things with Gus, laughing their butts of about certain stories they have told each other. Exchanging memories about these people, who once were their school mates, and about all these little sins of their youth their parents never learned about. And it was good they never learned about it, because if they would have … oh dear, but one did never want to even think about this possibility. Not that Shawn is scared of his father – or his mother – anymore. But certain things were simply not for a parent´s ears.

He leans back, on the couch, resting his eyes for a moment. It has been a long evening, but he hasn´t remembered anyone who he´d believe to be a psycho killer. Okay, maybe a few of them. But seriously, not to that degree.

Eventually Gus gets up, to make them another coffee. Both of them are tired and a coffee sounds like a good plan. While he´s busy in the kitchen, Shawn sits up again, to look through the yearbooks one more time. He´s smiling and sometimes chuckling about how cheesy some of these guys used to look. Especially this dude, with the funny hair and the big nose. He leans forward to read the name under the picture. Spencer, Shawn.

He frowns. Weird. He would have sworn he´d looked hotter back then. Is that how his hair had looked like? Strange. How memory could be deceiving. But the weirdest thing is the necklace he wears on that picture. He can´t even remember to ever have had such a thing. It´s of dark leather, only one thing hanging on it. A silver tomahawk.

"Gus, do you remember me having a Tomahawk?" he asks.

When he looks up, Gus stands in the door with a small shovel and broom in his hand, the ones Shawn keeps in his kitchen closet.

"What´s that?" he asks and Shawn smiles amused.

"Oh, those are my archeological tools. I kept it after we dug out Zippy, you know, for the good luck."

"Shawn."

"What do you think this is?" Shawn challenges his friend.

"What are you doing with these?" Gus asks instead of answering this rhetorical question.

Shawn shrugs. "I try my hand in gardening."

"Why that?"

Here Shawn hesitates, a little. "Dr. Manny said gardening is good for the nerves." he says, eventually and Gus frowns.

"Since when do you need to calm your nerves?" he asks.

"Well, a case like this is not unnerving?" Shawn snaps, defiant all the sudden.

It seems to work. Gus hesitates, shamefully. "Sure." he says. "Sure it is."

He puts the tools back where he found them on his search for the trash can and returns to the living room with two mugs of coffee.

"What were you asking me before?" he asks when he sits again.

"What?" Shawn is confused for a moment but then he remembers.

"It was something about a ….."

"Oh yeah. Here I found this picture of myself. Can you believe I ever looked that ridiculous?"

Gus only shoots him a glance, one brow raised, a smirk sparkling in his eyes. Shawn raises his brow in return, answering the challenge.

"Forget the question." he says, lowly. "Just tell me what this is." he points at the necklace.

Gus frowns and looks at the picture closer. "Oh, that. You only had that for a few weeks. It was in the summer of 1991." he halts, thinking this through. "Around the time when these murders happened actually. But I could be wrong. All I know is you were totally crazy about this Indian stuff back then and you even slept with this necklace."

Seriously?"

"Yes. Your Mom used to tell you you might strangle yourself in your sleep."

"Dude, I don´t remember any of this."

Gus only shrugs. "You lost it somewhere, only a few weeks later. It never was an issue again."

Shawn tries to remember it one last time and fails. Eventually he shrugs and puts it aside. It´s probably nothing anyway.

After that he and Gus keep trying to figure out something for a few more hours. They remember a lot of things, some are bad – the time of the murders – some are good and some are funny. And some are even hilarious, but neither of them really feels like laughing too much today. Not anymore.

Around six Gus decides to head home. He wants to do some preparations for tomorrow at work he says and leaves. Shawn stays behind, sitting on his couch, unsure how to proceed. This walk down memory lane hasn´t brought any result. And he feels depressed, despite the laughter he and Gus have shared.

He decides to get his head clear and puts in a movie. Secret Window, the one he didn´t get to finish the other day. He still doesn´t know how it ends and he´s determined to find out now. But he falls asleep on his couch halfway through it.

**...**

When day turns into night, Gus is still in his car, not driving but standing. Watching. Observing. He´s done that so many times with Shawn sitting beside him, but this time it´s different. This time he´s observing Shawn.

He doesn´t even know exactly why he´s doing this. Something in the back of his head just won´t let go of the thought that he has to do this. That he has to find out. About what exactly? He´s not sure. He just knows he has to know.

And then after a while, the door to Shawn´s apartment opens and Shawn comes out. Gus tenses. Shawn is carrying something in a sack. Gus can´t be sure but it has the size to be the little shovel and the broom.

He shakes his head. That´s ridiculous. Why should Shawn take them out with him, at that hour of the day? Except … but that´s even more ridiculous. He hasn´t come here to prove his friend since childhood is a psycho killer. Even if that should be the shovel and the broom in there, Shawn could have a perfectly rational reason to take them with. Maybe he got an idea concerning the case and wants to test his theory. He´s done stranger things over the years.

Gus can´t see him clearly enough to read his face, he´s too far away for that, and that has a reason. If he´d dared it to park any closer, Shawn would notice him, he just knows. But Shawn doesn´t seem to notice him. He just mounts his bike and drives off.

Gus follows, keeping his distance but not too much to lose him. Eventually Shawn stops in town, at the entrance to the park, and dismounts his bike. Gus quietly slips out of the car and locks it, following Shawn when he enters the park. The first victim has been found in the park, Gus recalls, buried in the flower beds, so maybe Shawn really wants to test something. Maybe how much time and strength it needs to bury a body there. Maybe.

He keeps following him. Shawn doesn´t hurry. He seems to stroll as if on a little walk, the sack with the shovel and the broom idly swinging at his side. Gus realizes that he´s changed to the conviction that this is the content of the sack. And he also realizes that Shawn is wearing leather gloves. He usually doesn´t wear gloves when he rides his bike. Why does he now? Because of the chilly night? Usually it´s Gus who complains about the cold, not Shawn.

He sees a movement ahead the path Shawn walks and spots someone coming from that direction. Another stroller. A young woman. Gus´ heart skips a beat. But no. Don´t be ridiculous.

Shawn smiles at her, and greets. She stops, smiling back. The two of them exchange a few words, but Gus can´t understand them. The voices are low, as if they´re afraid to disturb anyone if they talk too loud that late. Shawn points at something ahead and the girl follows his finger for a moment. To Gus it looks as if he asks her for the way. Her turn and brief hesitation, is the typical gesture of someone who tries to find the right words of explaining the way.

And then the shock. Shawn has something in his hand, something small, that he got out of his pocket, so quickly Gus could barely see the movement. But he sees the movement when Shawn wraps his arm around the girl, cupping her mouth with his hand. A moment later the knife in his hand, cuts through her neck and blood splashes forward, away from Shawn. He never was in any danger to get hit by it.

The girl tenses, only for a moment, before her body goes stiff, her hands clutching her own throat. When she turns around to see the face of her killer Shawn has taken some calm steps back, watching her from a save distance, while she writhes in pain, choking on her own blood, slowly doubling over, legs giving in.

Gus watches all this, and when he sees the girl dying under the uncaring stare of his life long friend, his body catches up with his numb mind, and he starts screaming, not able to hold it back. On the path, the girl is on the ground now, and Shawn swirls around, his eyes searching the direction where Gus is hiding.

Gus doesn´t stay any longer, to wait for what will happen. He starts running and without looking over his shoulder he knows that Shawn is chasing after him. Oh, god, he can almost feel him running after him. And then he hears him.

"Gus." he calls his name. Not angry, not surprised or worried, just in a tone as if he needs him to please stop, because he´d like to talk to him for a second.

Of course, Gus doesn´t comply. He keeps running, keeps screaming, all the way back to the parking lot. But Shawn´s steps are so close behind him that he doesn´t dare to stop now and waste time to open his car. He just keeps running, over the street and into the next dead end.

When he realizes his mistake it´s already too late. He turns around to run back out. But Shawn´s already there, barely panting.

Gus sees his eyes, smiling at him, and he screams again. It´s all his mind can think of in this moment, all he can do, because his legs refuse to move all the sudden. Like the rabbit before the snake.

But this is no snake. This is Shawn, the guy he grew up with, and still he´s not. Because Shawn never looks like that. This is the gaze of someone else, someone who kills and buries young women in the middle of the night. And Shawn would never do that, would he?

Gus is still asking himself that question, is still screaming helplessly, when Shawn closes in on him, the knife in his hand, glistening in the little light that falls into this allay from the street. And he keeps screaming when the two police officers come running around the corner and take Shawn into custody. He barely fights them and only a minute later, a minute that felt like an eternity for Gus´ terrified heart, everything´s over.

Only that it isn´t.


	4. The other Guy in the Holding Cell

**The other Guy in the Holding Cell**

When Shawn wakes up he knows at once, that he is not on his couch. But he should be there, he fell asleep there, so why is he not there? This place he is in, almost looks like the holding cell of the police station. But that doesn´t make any sense.

Maybe he´s still dreaming after all. But no. That dry air in his nose cannot be from any other place than the station´s holding cell. What leaves the most important question unanswered. Why is he here and not at home?

Slowly he sits up on the cot and his head feels as if he´s having the worst hangover since Tears for Fears went on that Concert through the states. He can´t even remember drinking something yesterday. Hell, he can´t remember anything from yesterday. Only that he and Gus had been sitting together over those yearbooks and after that … nothing. Only a faint image of a very very weird dream he only half remembers. What the hell is the matter with him?

He stands up, swaying a little, and walks to the bars of his cell.

"Hey, guys?" he calls out with a soar throat. "Guys! I´m awake now. You can come out and have your laugh at me. Do whatever you want … as long as you tell me how I got here." he finishes the line, mumbling to himself.

The door gets opened and he expects to see Lassie or his dad standing there, staring daggers at him for whatever reckless or silly thing he´s pulled off last night – because let´s be honest, it has to be something in that department or he wouldn´t be in here – but it´s not Lassie who comes in and it´s not his dad either. It´s Buzz and the way he looks at him, makes Shawn feel even stranger.

"Buzz." he greets. "Hey, buddy. What´s up? What is all this?"

The officer frowns, uncertain. "You don´t remember?" he asks and Shawn chuckles.

"No. What am I supposed to remember?"

Buzz shifts, uncomfortable, from one foot to the other. Eventually he steps aside to allow two people to walk in, a man and a woman. Shawn has never seen them before. No wait. He has seen them before. Back in the days when Lassie had been accused of having shot a prisoner.

"What´s this?" he wants to know.

"We´re ought to take some samples from you." the woman speaks. "For evidence."

Shawn pales, feeling sick, and looks at Buzz. What happened, he asks the officer without words, but Buzz only crouches and lowers his gaze.

"Sir." the woman speaks again, demanding his cooperation.

Shawn sighs and holds up his hands in the international gesture of surrender. For heaven´s sake.

"What do you need?"

**...**

The man behind this mirror is no murderer, Lassiter knows that. He´s an overgrown, silly, immature and reckless kid and he can annoy you at times to a point where _you_ want to kill _him_, but he is not violent. Guster must have been mistaken about what he saw last night, Lassiter is sure of that. And still, when he looks at Gus now, still shaken and even panting as if he just came running up a long fleet of stairs, he´s not so sure anymore.

"Are you absolutely sure about this, Gus?" Juliet asks him once again.

"You think I would have called you, and watched him get arrested like that, if I wasn´t sure?" Gus snaps. After that outburst he needs to take a deep breath before he can go on. "God, I don´t believe he really did it." he says, looking at the guy behind the mirror.

"Maybe he didn´t." O´Hara keeps arguing. "Maybe you saw someone else. You said it was dark, and you were far away. You could have been mistaken. You _have_ been mistaken, there´s just no other way."

"I wish it was that way. But there was no one else around but Shawn. Except for that girl he k…"

"I just …" O´Hara interrupts him just in time to keep him from saying the word that would condemn Spencer in all of their heads.

Lassiter sighs, glancing at the man in the interrogation room. He sits behind the table, shoulders crouching, hands wringing with each other, looking around unsure, so absolutely not like him. He´s scared. Scared because of guilt? But that is Spencer. McNab had said he´d claimed not to remember anything from last night. Could that be true?

"I´ll talk to him." he decides and wants to turn around. Only that Guster and O´Hara won´t just let him go.

"I´ll come with you." they cry almost simultaneously.

"No." he decides.

"He´s my best friend."

"And you´re not a police officer."

"But I am." O´Hara cries. "I´m detective and I´m coming with you."

"No." Lassiter repeats.

"But that´s Shawn."

"I know. And that´s exactly the reason why I´ll do this alone. From the three of us, I´m the only one who´s at least halfway objective about this case. You stay here."

And with that he walks away and enters the room, before she can discuss again. Spencer flinches when he hears the door, and turns toward him. God, he _does_ look scared.

"Lassie." he exclaims, gladly. "Finally. I´m going crazy if no one tells me what´s going on."

Lassiter squints, trying to figure him out. Is he honest with that? Or is it an act?

"Maybe you already went crazy." he comments and makes Spencer frown.

"What?"

"Do you remember driving to Blassay Park on your motorcycle last night?"

The frown deepens. "No."

Lassiter intensifies his efforts to read the face before him. It looks real. "So you didn´t leave your house, yesterday night." he demands a clarification.

Shawn chuckles. "No." he cries. "After Gus left, I put in Secret Window and … fell asleep on my couch." He frowns again, thinking deeply for a moment, as if he just remembered something strange. But then he blinks and shakes his head. "I wasn´t out anymore." he repeats.

Lassiter leans back, trying to think. He knows this man, knows him for years, and what Guster told them about last night is something he just can´t believe. But the evidence is strong and Guster is not a witness who is likely to be doubted. Usually his statements are accurate and more reliable than anyone else´s. So where´s the mistake in this picture?

"Was there ever any case of sleep walking in your life?" he hears himself ask, making Shawn raise his brows in surprise. "Did you ever stand up at nights and walked around the house when you were a kid or something?" Lassiter specifies his question but Shawn shakes his head.

Dammit. Drugs maybe? "Show me your arms." he demands. "The crooks."

Shawn does, not understanding the question, and Lassiter inspects the skin. But there are no puncture wounds. Of course someone could have injected him elsewhere too, but Lassiter just refuses to check the whole guy right now. If there had been anything the like the people who checked him in the holding cell, would have said something anyway.

"What´s the matter, Lassie?" Shawn asks, and his voice is almost pleading, so not like the Shawn he knows. Shawn´s never that insecure, that scared.

"Last night, Guster saw you leaving your house." he starts telling him. "He says you took your motorcycle and drove down to Blassay Park. When he followed you inside, he saw … he saw you murdering a young woman. You slit her throat, Spencer. From behind."

He watches Spencer´s eyes grow wide with confusion at this tale. If that is an act it´s the best he´s ever seen.

"This …" Shawn stutters. "This is ridiculous. Did he even see my face?"

"He says he did. And that you followed him after he screamed in shock over what he saw. He says that you chased him into a dark allay. In there he could see you very clearly. So did the police officers who came running after they heard his screams. They say they interrupted you just in time before you would have killed him."

Shawn sits there and stares, not saying a single word, unable to speak. Lassiter reaches under the table, taking the bag he´d brought in with him and had placed beside his chair so far. He reaches in and gets the evidence out, laying it on the table before Spencer. A shovel and a broom.

"Recognize this?" he asks. "That´s yours. Your fingerprints are all over them. We found some of Guster´s too. He said he found them in your closet yesterday. Any explanation?"

Shawn seems rather lost and only shrugs.

"We found them next to the dead woman." Lassiter clarifies.

In any other interrogation this would be the moment when the culprit slips into defensive mode, trying to explain himself out of it. But this is not a normal interrogation and no normal culprit sitting before him. It´s Spencer. And Spencer falls silent, looking down on the tools before him as if they were hypnotizing him.

Lassiter doesn´t know what to do anymore. He´s not getting any answers here, that much he can see. Eventually he gets up and leaves the room. Spencer stays behind, still silent, like a grave.

**...**

"Maybe he got hypnotized by someone." Gus blurs, before Lassiter can even say anything. "The real killer who wants him to get blamed for his crimes. I know at least half a dozen drugs that can make people do what another one demands and make them forget what happened afterward. It´s quite possible."

Lassiter looks at the two-way mirror, thoughtfully. Spencer is still silent, sitting on the table as if he has fallen asleep with open eyes. He has arrested a lot of drug addicts over the years but that is not quite how it used to look. But Guster´s idea sounds at least more likely than the idea of Spencer mutating into a bloodthirsty serial killer.

Henry who must have arrived while Lassiter talked to Spencer, doesn´t say a word the whole time. He is quiet and retrieved into his own thoughts, strangely looking like his son in the other room. Only that Lassiter can see in his eyes that he is still there, thinking all of this through, trying to find an explanation for something that doesn´t seem to be explainable.

"I go in there." O´Hara decides when she can´t stand the silence any longer. "I need to talk to him. He needs to know that we believe him." Gus nods, following her out of the door. Lassiter reaches them just in time to keep them from entering the interrogation room.

"Carlton, move." Juliet demands and his hand releases the door handle before he even knows he´s doing it.

But even though it´s Juliet he crouches away from, it´s Henry who enters the interrogation room first.

This time Spencer doesn´t flinch when the door opens. He doesn´t even look up. His eyes seem to be too heavy for that, as if he really fell asleep in that chair. But he´s awake, Lassiter can see that. He just refuses to react to them, as if that way he can block out the consequences of his situation. But this is not a favor they can do him.

Eventually, when they all stand around him, like a group of judges examining their culprit, he moves again, raising his head to look at them.

His face is strangely calm, Lassiter notices, he even seems to smile, subtly, but it´s there. So far Lassiter thought Shawn was in shock, too shaken up by the revelation he´d broken down to him before. But now that he sees him closely, he realizes that this is not the case. Quite the contrary, he seems not a bit concerned anymore.

His eyes sweep over all of them, briefly, and eventually remain on Guster.

"Gus." he greets him. "Nice to see you, buddy. You all right? Sorry for scaring you so much last night."

For a moment they all are too much taken by surprise, not even Henry knows what to say.

"Shawn." Gus speaks at last, his eyes jumping over to the others for support. "I´m sorry." he says and Shawn smiles.

"Don´t be. It´s not your fault."

Again they all exchange uncertain glances, until it´s once again O´Hara who breaks the silence, by taking Shawn´s hands, hunching down before him.

"Shawn." she says, looking him in the eyes. "We all believe you, that you didn´t do anything wrong. You are not a killer. Someone did this to you, tries to frame you, we´re sure of it. And we will find out who it was."

She squeezes his hands, looking into a face, and the whole time he´s listened to her outburst with placid calmness. A calmness that starts to freak out even Lassiter. Shawn smiles at her.

"That´s good to know." he says and squeezes her hands back, laying one of his over both of hers. "I´m so glad you believe in me." and he leans forward, to kiss her. Not briefly though, like someone who´d underline words of gratitude, but long and almost possessively.

Juliet allows it only until he starts to cup her cheeks, not intending to stop any time soon. He even deepens the kiss.

Eventually she breaks it, startled, and jumps up, stumbling a little to find her balance.

"Shawn, this …" she clears her throat, uncomfortable, scratching her neck. "This is kinda inappropriate right now."

"You are aware of the fact that you´re accused of having killed a woman?" Gus asks his friend.

"Several women." Lassiter adds, watching the fake psychic closely.

"I trust you to prove it wasn´t me." he replies. "Besides. So far you only can connect me to this one victim, not to the others." he glances at them, waiting. "Right?"

Henry leans forward at last. "Shawn." he faces his son intently. "Do you _remember_ what happened last night?"

Shawn holds his father´s gaze and breaks into a smile. "The human lie detector?" he asks and then shrugs. "Yes, I remember a few things." He turns to the others but Henry won´t allow him to turn away from him.

"Shawn, look at me." he demands. "Did you go out last night? To Blassay Park? Do you remember …" he needs to gulp before he can finish. "Do you remember killing that girl?"

Out of all of them Henry is probably the only one who would have ever found the nerves to actually speak out those words in such a way. And now he has done it.

Again, Shawn smiles at him, for a while, until his smile falls, suddenly and Henry´s eyes flicker, uncertain. And then Shawn lunges forward, barking at his father – actually barking, like a dog. Only once, only so briefly, but it´s enough to startle Henry into a jump.

His expression is shaken, when Shawn leans back in his chair, snickering amused.


	5. By reason of Insanity?

**By reason of Insanity?**

Lassiter crosses his arms before his chest, looking into the interrogation room on the other side of the mirror. Spencer sits on the table, waiting. His eyes are darting around, nervously, again and again. He´s his old self again, unsure. At least it seems so.

The door opens and the psychologist steps in.

"Hello, Shawn." greets the man who´s supposed to diagnose Spencer. „My name is Dr. Morey, DA´s psychological expert. You remember me, right?"

Shawn shakes his head, his gaze helpless like a little boy.

"No?" Morey asks. "But I remember you clearly. We met during a case about a certain suspect called Rying Bainsworth. Lying Ryan as they still call him."

Spencer lowers his eyes, thinking.

"You doubted my diagnosis." Morey recalls and Spencer inhales, raising his chin a little.

"Right." he says. "I remember." He clears his throat, uncomfortable. "I also remember that I was right to doubt it. He was telling the truth." And finally he manages a halfhearted chuckle. "Strange that they sent you here, to figure out what´s wrong with me." He faces the mirror, his eyes still pleading. "Are you sure you can´t get Dr. Manny here?" he asks, honestly begging. "He knows me so much better. He could figure out what´s wrong with me."

Dr. Morey shakes his head. "I´m afraid you´ll have to deal with me, Shawn." He says and sits down, oposite of Shawn. He regards him through the thick glasses on his nose. "Your colleagues said you acted … strange last time they talked to you." he tells him.

"Yeah, that´s the thing." Shawn retorts. "I didn´t talk to THEM. I talked to Lassie. And then he left. And now I talk to you."

"So you can´t remember barking at your father?" Morey asks with a professionally raised brow.

Shawn raises both brows in response, honestly startled.

"Barking?" he repeats and laughs, at least tries to. "You sure it wasn´t the other way around?" he asks. "That´s how it usually goes."

"So you´re saying your reaction was some kind of revenge for livelong treatment?" Morey tries to deduct.

"I´m not saying anything!" Shawn shouts at him, burying his head in his hands. "God, I … I can´t remember, okay? What´s happening to me?"

"Do you remember why you´re here?" Morey asks. "Why you were arrested?"

Shawn looks up, thinking for a moment. "Lassie said … he said, they think I … I killed a woman." His next words are barely a whisper. "Or even more."

Dr. Morey nods. "I tell you what I think." he says. "I know, it´s kinda unorthodox to diagnose fast forward but after what your friends described and what you tell me now … I think we´re facing a classical case of mental disorder."

Shawn looks at him with a blank face, eyes glassy as if he´s close to fall asleep.

"In English?" he asks and Lassiter chuckles.

"A split personality." the psychologist explains patiently and Shawn laughs, weakly.

"You´re kidding right?" he says. "Like that chick in Heroes?"

The doctor eyes him with an intense stare, as if he tries to imitate a psychopath himself. It seems to have exactly that effect on Shawn, because he skips back, irritated. He chuckles nervously but the smile dies on his face.

"Can I talk to Jack?" Morey asks him, and the way he says this, creeps out even Lassiter. He can hear Juliet, suppressing a sob. "Is he there?" the doctor asks Spencer. "Jack? Are you in there? Can you hear me? Would you talk to me, Jack?"

Spencer´s face has fallen and he stares back at Morey with terror, his eyes big as if he just realized something too horrifying to express with words. A few moments pass and Lassiter realizes that Spencer is zoned out.

Morey doesn´t say anything, he just waits for Shawn to figure out his answer. And eventually it comes. Shawn´s face changes, the fear is gone all the sudden and he looks at the doctor with new gained confidence.

Morey moves his head, attentively. "Jack?" he asks and Lassiter feels the hair in his neck standing up.

Shawn smiles, chuckling. "Stupid name." he says. "They should have called him Moriarty. Or the Killing Sherlock. Wiping out all the traces was pure genius."

Lassiter suppresses a shiver. He´s sure he isn´t the only one who feels a cold hand around his chest at those words. But he can´t bring himself to look at the others. He can´t tear his eyes away from the scene in the interrogation room.

Morey doesn´t seem to be disturbed at all.

"Is that why you did it?" he asks Shawn, eying him with great interest. "To prove how good you are?"

Once again Shawn smiles. "I never thanked my dad for all the training he put me through when I was a kid." he says and then he faces the glass, as it seems looking directly into the eyes of his father. Henry, who has paled just like everyone else in the viewing room.

"You see that, dad?" Shawn speaks. "I´m the product of your good work."

Lassiter glances at the older Spencer but Henry´s eyes are fixed on Shawn´s, like hypnotized. And he inhales, very slowly.

**...**

Chief Vick sighs, heavily. "So it is true." she speaks heavily. "He really did it."

"Even if he doesn´t know it." Dr. Morey says. "Or better yet, a part of him doesn´t remember."

Everybody in the room is taken aback over this revelation, shocked or aghast. Everybody but Henry. He only huffs.

"Stupid. Shawn´s not crazy. You should rethink your profession, doctor. Mental disorder. That´s just ridiculous. There was no case in our family about something like that, neither at my side nor his mother´s."

"Sometimes it doesn´t need a genetic disposition …" the doctor tries to speak up but Henry ignores him.

"He is not crazy." he just goes on. "No. NO. There´s another explanation for what´s wrong with him. I want a tox screen. Or, or whatever. It´s something. Something we can take care of. Maybe he´s just … just …"

"Crazy?" Gus offers the word, when Henry doesn´t know how to finish and the older Spencer glares at him.

"He is your best friend, Gus." he shouts at him but other than usual Gus doesn´t flinch away.

"That´s why I know the difference." he shouts back and points at the psychologist. "The guy he talked to, was not Shawn. Not towards the end of it. Tell me that this was your son in there."

For a while Henry just stares back at Gus, almost hatefully. "My son is not a psycho." he declares at last, his voice dangerously low.

"Then what do you think he´s doing, Henry?" Lassiter asks. "Pretending? Pleading insanity, to get away with multiple murder?"

Next to him, Juliet exhales a shaking breath and closes her eyes.

**...**

In the holding cell, Buzz McNab finds Shawn Spencer sitting in a corner, crouching, hiding his shaking fists behind his knees. The sight is shocking in such a profound way, that he doesn´t know what to do other than stare at him, with an open mouth.

Shawn´s head moves sideways to meet his gaze. His eyes are dry but scared, desperate.

"Buzz." he whispers, his voice quiet and quavering. "What´s happening to me? I feel as if I´m falling apart. Inside." he turns back to his fists, shaking stronger than ever. "Am I to die, Buzz? I´m dying, I know it. I can feel it happening. He´s killing me from the inside. Right now."

He grabs his chest, gasping.

"Stop it." he cries, not at Buzz, and gasps again. "Don´t."

Gasp.

"Don´t kill me."

Gasp.

"Buzz, help me."

The last breath he takes in is so strange, stopping somewhere in his throat as if there was a block in it, that keeps the air out. He starts choking and Buzz gets scared.

"Help!" he shouts over his shoulder, quickly unlocking the door. "We need some help here!"

**...**

When McNab´s voice echoes through the station, everybody in the chief´s office swirls around and starts to run immediately. None of them even thinks twice about what could have happened.

When they reach the holding cells, they find McNab in Shawn´s cell … in front of him, on his knees. Shawn is behind him, his arm around his neck, holding something to his throat that looks like a sharpened spring from the cot. The pointy wire sticks dangerously deep into the officer´s skin, right beneath his jugular. Shawn is smiling, evilly, even when Lassiter pulls his gun.

"Let go of him!" he shouts but Shawn takes cover behind McNab´s head. Lassiter doesn´t have a clean shot anymore.

"_You_ better let go." he replies calmly, increasing pressure to McNab´s throat. "Now."

Lassiter grits his teeth but drops his gun.

"Shawn, what are you doing?" Juliet asks, shocked about what she sees.

"Making a point." he tells her, playfully poking his hostage´s throat.

"You won´t get away from here, Spencer." Lassiter says. "You know that."

"You think that´s what I want?" the man behind McNab asks in response and chuckles, his eyes darting over to Henry. "What do _you_ think? DAD? What do I want?"

"Shawn." Henry speaks up, his mouth opening and closing a few times. "Stop this." he demands, but his voice is too weak to be authoritative.

Shawn smiles toothily and nods.

"Sure, dad." he says but does nothing to change the situation. Eventually he cocks an eyebrow at his father. "Let me guess, dad. You doubted that any of this could be real. Not your Shawnie. Not the guy you raised. Your product." He chuckles, a long while. "Well. Surprise."

"Spencer." Lassiter speaks, when Henry can´t. "Just drop the spring. Let McNab go and this will end not too badly for you."

Shawn holds his gaze for a long time, without saying a word. "You promise?" he asks, eventually.

Lassiter frowns. Shawn smiles.

"Didn´t think so." he says and then, without a warning, he stabs the wire into McNab´s throat.

Blood splatters down his uniform at once and the officer grabs his throat, desperately trying to save his own life. Shawn jumps back, letting go of him at last. Outside the cell at least three people try to open the door at once and even though it is a ridiculously big jumble, Lassiter has the time to notice Shawn´s reaction to his own deed.

His eyes are big and his mouth stands open. He jumps back to McNab, grabbing his shoulders and a moment later he takes out his shirt, quickly bundles it and presses it over the wound.

By now the door is open and they all rush into the cell. Shawn skips back on his own but Lassiter grabs him anyway, pushing him against the wall, while O´Hara tries her best to stop the bleeding on McNab´s throat. It takes ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive and as unbelievable as it is, McNab is still conscious when he´s brought out.

Shawn stands against the wall the whole time, watching terrified and more than worried. Lassiter looks into his eyes and sees nothing but the Spencer he´s known for years. Minus the characteristic smile maybe. But no cold blooded killer.

This changes when they close the cell behind him. The terror vanishes from his eyes, replaced by eery calmness and his hands grab the bars. He smiles out to them again, mostly at his father.

"How´s that about your boy, dad?" he asks. "How´s that about doubting and ignoring facts? And mistakes. It´s pretty hard to ignore something like this, isn´t it? Something so striking. You can´t ignore me anymore, dad, I´m right here."

Lassiter somehow manages it to take his eyes off the man in the holding cell and glances at Henry. But Henry only stares at the man, that is not talking with his son´s voice anymore. And he can´t look away.


	6. Verdict: Guilty as Charged

**Verdict: Guilty as Charged**

The sentence comes three months after his arrest. Guilty in all points of the charge. The proof is simply too overtaking for any doubt which may have lengthened the trial. Multiple murder, over the course of twenty years. It brings everyone down. Even the nifty Digging Jack.

It´s a long and wary process. All the doctors come to the same conclusion. Multiple personality disorder. One innocent, horrified by the acts his alter ego has committed. The other murderous and with no sign of remorse. And the worst is, the other one seems to get stronger. Again and again, the Shawn everybody knows gets pushed aside, suppressed by the stronger, the violent part of his soul. Especially in court this makes a strong impression on the people involved. The judge, the jury, everyone. Voices are loud from the beginning, that his is all a trick, that he tries to plead insanity for his own advantage. But the doctors all say the same. All the experts agree, independently from each other, that this is not an act.

"This man is sick." one of them states in court, an internationally respected psychologist. "One of the worst cases I´ve ever seen."

The court wears them all out, but none as much as it wears out Juliet. On the inside. On the outside she´s the strongest of them all. She is the one who supports Henry when he has his breakdown, right after he walks out of the courtroom, not able to keep his composure any longer. She holds his shaking form, padding his back comfortingly, while she wants to cry herself. But somehow she can´t. She just can´t. She knows she has to be strong, or all the walls will break, and fall apart all around them.

The verdict comes at last. Instead of the needle Shawn gets therapy, in one of the highest secured state prisons. He´s raging, in court, when the sentence is announced, and as the guards drag him out, he´s laughing, like a mad man that enjoys the greatest day of his life.

Juliet can´t stand it any longer. She can´t stand looking at Henry´s retrieved face, or at Gus, who still looks as if this is all fresh for him. As if they found out, not three months ago, but only today. Juliet gets up and leaves, not looking back when Lassiter calls after her. His voice is a choked, uncertain cry, not the harsh tone it used to be, before all this madness came over them, to bury all their lives underneath the debris.

**...**

"They say you can overcome it." Gus tells him, three months into his incarceration, and Shawn´s eyes are wide, desperate.

The white jump suite he´s wearing makes him look even paler than he already is. And Juliet wishes, desperately, that she´d be able to reach through some bars, to touch him, squeeze his hand, to let him know she´s here. To let him feel that he isn´t alone.

But she can´t. She can´t reach through the bars, because there are none. Just a cold wall of plexiglass, air holes in it and covered over and over with fingerprints. The nurses say he´s getting better, that today is a good day, and these good days are getting more regular. The medics do their work. At least a bit.

But Juliet knows that there are other days, still. Days when he is not the Shawn she knows, the soft and gentle one, that she fell in love with. On those days he´s Jack the Digger. And Jack is raging, shouting, hitting against the glass to get out, and laughing like mad, when he realizes that he can´t. As if it was all a big joke, a ridiculous try of _them_ to keep him locked up. She has seen footage from the security cams, against the advise of the doctors, and it had made her blood run cold.

Looking at him now, makes it even more unreal. Because he´s so scared, he tells them. Scared of the other one. He´s shaking, and she just knows that it is real. His fear is real. And so is his need for her. And Gus. For all of them.

Even Carlton has come here a few times, at the beginning of it all. Only he stopped visiting, after a while. Juliet knows why, but she doesn´t pester him. It´s hard for all of them, and other than Henry, Carlton at least tried to face this. Sometimes she wonders how _she_ can still stand to face this.

"I …" Shawn stutters now, eying his best friend with desperate fear. "I don´t know, Gus. I can´t do this any longer. I´m going mad in here."

"No, you won´t." Gus tells him, and he tries his best to sound strong. "You won´t, Shawn. You will get better. There are a dozen doctors and psychologists working here, to take care of you. They will find a way to cure you."

"He´s right." Juliet agrees, and steps closer to the glass, laying her hands over his, to emphasize her words.

His eyes soften at this, and from one moment to the other, his fear seems to subside, not completely but he´s calmer now.

Juliet looks him straight in the eyes, and she nods. "You will come back to me." she tells him. "One day, you will walk out of here, cured from this … this sickness."

"Right." Gus breaths, so tensed, worried about his friend. "You only need to trust them."

"Them." Shawn repeats, eyes cast down, as if he contemplates this word.

"They can cure you." Gus insists. "And we´ll help you. When you only go to therapy and take your medics."

Shawn smiles, sadly, but there is something in his eyes now that speaks of more confidence than he has shown before. Something a little less afraid than before.

"I will." he promises, and he looks at both of them. "For you." he tells them. "I promise."

**...**

In that night, Juliet sleeps badly. She dreams of Shawn, switching back and forth between his two personalities, almost with each breath he takes. He´s with her, talking to her, and she tries to make sense of what he´s trying to tell her. In her dream it is weary but not unusual to talk to him like he´s two different people, sharing one body. She feels drained by the try to keep track on who she´s talking to. But she isn´t scared. She´s annoyed.

"Can´t you just decide what you want already?" she cries in this dream, fed up with his indecisiveness.

But he can´t. Because none of the two parts wants to step back, to hand the body over to the other, just like that.

"I have as much right to live this life as he does." Jack cries, furious, and there´s nothing Juliet could say against that, is there?

"I was born in it." Shawn insists. "I grew up with this. And Juliet is my girlfriend, not yours, dude."

"Oh come on, little brother. It stays in the family, doesn´t it?"

"You don´t even know her favorite movie quote."

The banter goes on but Juliet doesn´t remember it all. It all seems to fly by, like a draft, and all she remembers is this one point Shawn has tried to make. One that doesn´t seem to make any sense. What does her favorite movie quote have to do with it? And just because they´re identical twins, doesn´t mean they have to share everything. Jack´s just talking crazy.

She wants to tell him that, but she doesn´t get a chance. Because the banter has accelerated into a solid fight between the two brothers by now. They struggle, and Juliet watches them in fear that they will hurt each other. She doesn´t stop and wonder how there can be two of them all the sudden, where they have been only one, before.

The fight becomes so violent that she is scared to death. Blood is all over them, and all around her the living room lies in ruins, as they use everything they find as a weapon against the other. Still Juliet feels as if this fight is so normal, like a regular fight between brothers that simply have a disagreement. Just like it is totally normal for her to hear Shawn and Gus banter about something. And they never try to actually kill each other either, do they?

Before she has a chance to wonder what would happen to Shawn, if one of them would kill the other, she wakes up, from the shrill sound of her phone. Outside it is still dark. Her clock reads, three thirty a.m.

**...**

The emergency call comes in, at the nurses station, at two in the morning. Amanda Deary has the night shift today, and she is quite worried when she hears it is Shawn Spencer´s cell that needs a visit.

She knows Shawn. He´s a nice enough guy, and so far she´d had the great luck not to encounter his other personality. The other nurses have told her about him, and she believes them. But when she´s talking to nice, and shy Shawn, she always forgets that he is sick. He seems helpless, and submissive. And who could blame him, having to stand being locked up in this place.

Now that she heads for his cell, Dr. Armstrong at her right, the guards to her left, her heart pounds with fear. She has seen a few suicide attempts in those facilities, and some of them have actually been successful. Please, she begs in her mind. Please, let Shawn not end like this. He doesn´t deserve this.

The guard, standing before the cell, looks pale when they approach him, and Amanda already sees the cell covered in blood, from a gushing wound on Shawn´s wrist, his eyes open and empty. She almost stops in her tracks, scared to see it. But her feet keep moving, always efficient and ready to do the job, no matter how cruel the sight might be.

Her breath itches one last time, before her eyes finally fall down on the man lying there, on the ground, before his cot. But there is no blood. His eyes are indeed open, but not empty. They´re wide, with pain and panic. His hand is clutching his chest, and he wrenches, gasping heavily for air.

"He started to breath like that, five minutes ago." the guard tells them. "I don´t think he´s pretending."

Amanda dosn´t think so either. Shawn´s getting read in the face, and he´s sweating. Dr. Armstrong shares her opinion.

"Open the door." he orders, and the guard hesitates. "You have guns, for gods sake. There are three of you here. At least ten locked doors between here and a freedom this man will never see again. There´s no danger that he might get away from here. But he´ll suffocate if you don´t let me help him. So would you please open this door?"

"Doctor!" Amanda cries, staring at Shawn, who´s stopped heaving, the tension in his body getting slack already.

"Now, goddammit!" Armstrong shouts and this time the guard agrees.

It needs a few quick checks and a syringe full of epinephrine to make Shawn´s lungs function again. The result is a loud rasping breath, wide bloodshot eyes and a hand that clutches Amanda´s wrist, so suddenly it startles her into a jump. And after that, nothing. He sinks into himself, and is gone.

Amanda bows over him, almost faster than Dr. Armstrong can. Almost.

"I need to bring him to the infirmary." he tells the guards. "He´s in very critical condition. Get a stretcher. Hurry."

"Why is this happening to him, doctor?" Amanda asks, but the old man shakes his head.

"I wish I knew." he mumbles. "I wish I knew."

The stretcher is brought in barely two minutes later. The guards lift Shawn up, binding his wrists and ankles with leather straps, safely, before shoving him out of the cell. Amanda and Dr. Armstrong stay at his side, all the time.

**...**

When he opens his eyes, no one notices, at first. The doctor and his nurse are too busy discussing Shawn´s well being, and how to keep him stable over night, that they don´t see it coming. Not until it´s too late.

The straps are removed easily. His father taught him well, and one hand is loose anyway. They had to set an IV to his arm, so they set him free almost by themselves. Free to do whatever he wants.

And he does.

The doctor comes first. He´s the bigger threat, no matter how old, but he´s a male and the nurse is too shocked to respond in time. When he advances upon her, she only shrieks, but not nearly loud enough to alarm anyone farther away than right outside the closed door.

Of course the guards come running, but it is not distraction that keeps the slash on her throat perfunctory.

Shots are ringing out, and he dodges, and runs head down, into the man´s stomach. A grunt is audible and then there are more shots from his gun. Only this time they aim at his colleagues. The two are down in seconds, and the gun is pried from its owner´s hand. One single shot is enough to thank him. Two more,one respectively for each of the other guards, to end their suffering.

After that it is silent. Silent except for the gurgling breathing sounds, just behind him, from the corner.

He turns around, smiling at the helpless panic of his nurse. Her hand on her throat is bloody, her face so pale as if she´s already dead. But she isn´t. Not yet.

He throws the gun away, as casually as someone would throw a piece of junk to the ground. He could run now, he knows. He probably should. But he just can´t help himself. He needs to make sure they know who just escaped them.

"You never were anything without me, Shawn." he mutters, fixing burning eyes on the fading nurse. "It´s time for you to admit this."

There´s a tiny twitch in the back of his mind, and he frowns irritated. But it´s gone as fast as it came, and so he shakes his head, ignoring it. The nurse´s eyes are falling shut already. But still she´s so beautifully terrified.

Jack the Digger looks around, until he finds what he needs. And goes to work.

**...**

"… no one knows where he went." Carlton´s voice cries into her ear. "Did you just hear me, O´Hara?"

"I heard you." Juliet manages it to breath. "I just don´t believe it."

"I´m on my way over to you. Stay inside, and lock all your doors and windows."

"I only have one door, Carlton."

"Did you hear what I just said?" he asks again and he emphasizes every single word, to make sure she´ll understand.

"I hear you." she says, astoundingly calm. "I´ll be fine."

"Five minutes." he tells her. "Tops." and then the line is dead. But not because he hung up. It happened too fast for that. There was no click, indicating the disconnecting of a call. Instead the line is just gone. And from one moment to the other Juliet´s breath is too.

Her mouth opens, to speak, but it needs much longer than she´d expected to actually form the words.

"Carlton?" she asks, against better knowledge, and in her heart she already knows who´s standing behind her, in the dark corner of her own apartment.

How he´s gotten in she doesn´t know. But she doesn´t need to know. She knows only one thing. The man in this room is not the one she loves, not her friend, not her comrade through all those crime solving adventures they´ve been through over the years. The man in this room is here for one reason and one alone. To kill her. Just like all the others. And it is either him or her.

Either way, one of them will be dead at the end of this night.

Juliet grabs her gun, with a shaking hand, before she turns around.


	7. The only Way Out

**The only Way Out**

When she finally summons the willpower to turn around and face him, her hand firmly around the handle of her gun, she sees something she didn´t expect. Not a murderer, looming in the dark, with glowing eyes, hungry for her blood. Not a predator, more resembling a wolf than the soft and gentle human being she knows. Not a bloodthirsty killer, ready to finish her off. What she sees is so unexpected that she momentarily loses the grip of her gun.

_It´s Shawn, _is all she can think._ Oh god, is this possible? Is it him after all? Is he still in there?_

The figure before her is bloody, red splashed all over his white jumpsuit. He´s holding his side, as if the blood were still gushing out from a wound.

_It´s not his blood, it´s theirs. Don´t fall for that. He killed five people on his way out, decapitated a woman and placed her head on an IV pole. This man isn´t Shawn. Shawn is dead. This man is a devil. A monster. And he doesn´t deserve to live. Not in this body._

"Don´t move." she orders, discharging her gun, but the pleading look in his eyes makes her falter all over again. Are those tears she sees glisten in his eyes?

"Jules." his voice is croaked, so quiet, as if it wants to break for good. He swallows. And then so quiet she can barely hear it. "Please."

She hesitates, only for a moment. "I know what you did." she tells him. "I will not fall for that."

He closes his eyes, tears falling out, flung by the shaking of his head. "I know." he chokes. "I know, I saw it. I saw it all. Through his eyes." he looks up at her, so desperate. "I couldn´t do anything to stop him. I …"

And this time when he chokes, and more tears spill down his face, Juliet believes him. It _is_ Shawn. Dear god, it really is Shawn.

"Shawn?" she asks and when he turns to step forward she straightens her gun again, warningly. "Don´t." her voice breaks too. "Just … stay there."

And he does, nodding in agreement. "I´m scared, Jules." he tells her. "I have no way of escaping him. He´s always there. Always whispering. Into my head."

Juliet´s hand is shaking. Her whole mind longs for release. "What do you want me to do?" she asks, and as if he only waited for her to drop this question, his eyes light up, with new desperate hope.

"I think I know how to stop this." he tells her. "How to beat him. But I can´t do it alone."

"How?" she demands, a part of her still on her guard, warning her not to fall for an act, Jack might pull here. This could still be something totally faked. And only her soft heart that still wants to believe that _her_ Shawn could still be saved, would play into his hands, make her believe him.

She knows how these men work. They use the most vulnerable part of their victims against them, to bring them down. And this is her vulnerable part. Her heart. Her hopes. But she won´t let him do this. She won´t allow him to corrupt this for his own sick plans.

Shawn´s eyes flicker, down to the ground, as if unsure if he should go on.

"How do you want to beat him?" Juliet demands, and on the spur of the moment, she adds: "You know that Carlton is on his way here."

For a moment, Shawn seems to be caught off guard by this news. But his surprise vanishes only a second later, and he nods. "Good." he says. "That´s good. Maybe he can do it."

"Do what?"

And he swallows, a big lump in his throat. "Kill me." he whispers, hoarsely.

Juliet is too shocked for the moment, to keep her cry contained: "What? Are you crazy?"

"This might be the only chance." he tells her. "If I can´t defeat him, he´ll take over for good. And no one will ever be save again. You know what he did. He got out. And he´ll keep getting out. I can´t let this happ ..."

He stops, as if a wave of pain just hit him, and he winces, face distorted with angry fear. Juliet takes a step back, realizing for the first time, how much closer she stood to Shawn. Much closer than she should.

He stumbles, just a little bit forward, catching his own fall on her armchair. She watches him fight, against something invisible to her, and it´s eating up her insides, not to be able to do anything.

"Shawn!" she calls out for him, when she can´t stand it any longer, and as if her call made it happen, he looks up. Something in his eyes looks different, she knows that at once.

"Hello, Jules." he says and it makes her blood run cold.

"No." she can only breath the word. "Please."

"Oh, dear, you don´t have to beg." he says and straightens up, only to be hit by a new wave of pain, that makes him wince.

"Jules." he cries, voice suppressed. "Shoot … him. Shoot …"

"This is not your choice, Shawn." Jack shouts, enraged and he jumps forward, towards Juliet, before she can fathom what just happened. A shot leaves her gun, but too late. It hits the wall, and something, she can´t even say what, hits her, knocking her off her feet.

_No._

All she can see are limps. His feet to her side, his form looming over her, and hands that grab her hair, pulling her up.

_No._

"Jules." a desperate cry and the hand lets go of her.

"NOOOO!" the hand grabs her hair again, before she can crawl away. "She´s mine now."

And a jerk of this iron hand on her head, throws her around. A heavy thud and Shawn lies on the ground, next to her. His fingers are lose, not in her hair anymore, and she realizes, that she wasn´t even meant to be thrown around. That she got only trapped in the momentum of his fight with himself.

As fast as she can she skips back, out of his reach, and just in time as it seems. Because his eyes flash again, when he realizes that he´s losing his pray. He struggles up, to come after her, and Juliet dives, for her gun.

Shawn is faster though, and his hands are on the gun just a heartbeat before hers. She fights for it, kicks out, to get him off. But he pulls and in the end he has the gun. Juliet stares in shock, as he raises it and aims it. His eyes are on her, so desperate, and he turns the gun around, at himself.

Juliet hears her own cry, just before the shot drowns out everything else. If Shawn hadn´t already been on the ground, he would have dropped now. But this way he only winces, holding his abdomen, an expression of utter surprise on his face, as if he hadn´t expected it to hurt that much.

This was so typical for him, doing something totally brave and yet so totally stupid, not even thinking about the consequences. And it is so much Shawn that Juliet feels tears stinging her eyes, pain worming through her chest.

_No, please no._

"Shawn."

And then the door gets busted, making her wince all over again.

"O´HARA!" Carlton shouts, and when he sees Shawn on the ground, along with her, he jumps to her side, gun aiming at a bleeding Shawn.

"No." she cries, holding out her hands. "It was him." she tries to tell him. "He shot himself. Shawn is …" but she doesn´t know what Shawn is right now. All she can do is stare at him, lying in his own blood, his eyes still so awake, still so desperate.

"Jules …" he manages, just before Jack resurfaces, with rage and fury. His eyes fly upwards, to Lassiter, and his anger vanishes behind mad laughter. As if all of this was just hilarious.

Carlton is shaken by it, Juliet sees it, but he doesn´t let it show.

"You son of a bitch." he growls pointing his gun for emphasis. "You´re going back to prison, you hear me?"

But Shawn only keeps laughing, until his eyes find Juliet again.

"You think so, my dear?" he asks. "You heard what he told you." And he shows her a bloody smile, teeth red with crimson. "I´ll never be gone. Not for as long as you live."

Juliet feels a shiver running down her spine at those words, whispered, like a promise. And then there is Shawn again, his face distorted with the greatest pain, his scream blood curling. And so agonizingly Shawn.

"O´Hara." Carlton tries to drag her up, to make her get away from him, but she can only close her eyes, understanding at last. Understanding that Shawn had been right. That this is the only way that this can end. And that she might have been right in the end too. When this was over one of them would be dead.

"O´Hara."

Carlton´s voice is shaking too. And Juliet opens her eyes.

"Shoot him." she speaks, and she can´t believe how even her voice is.

Her gaze meets Shawn´s, only for a moment, before the fight continues between the two men that share this body. But the short glimpse she catches is enough. He knows, and he understands. This is what he wants. And so she repeats it.

"Shoot him."

When Carlton is still hesitating, she shouts at him.

"He´s losing the battle, don´t you see it?! Shoot him or he´ll lose it for good. He´ll never …"

And the shot rings out. Before she´s ready. Before she had a chance to look at him only one last time. She stares, at Shawn, slacking down, with a sigh almost of relieve, and the smell of Carlton´s gun is still in her nose, far too strong. All she can hear afterward is her own pounding heart.

**...**

The year following this fateful night in Juliet´s apartment is slow, and very painful. The most painful year Henry can remember. And yet … in the end it´s not the worst that could have happened, he muses, in the deafening silence of his living room. The living room where he´d spend Christmas after Christmas, trying to guess his son´s present better than he guessed his. He barely ever won. And now, after all that has happened, he can´t help but wonder why.

A little more than a year, for him to think back, on all the possible turns in all of their lives. All the possible mistakes that he could have prevented, that eventually must have lead to all of this. Because who else is to be blamed if not him? He was his father. He´d trained him. He´d made him.

It´s true what he´d said in that interrogation room. He was his creature. And now he can´t ignore that any longer.

Henry sighs, deeply, thinking back of that night, a year ago. Juliet´s pale expression, blood on her cheek, where Shawn´s hand had touched her, just before he´d slipped away. Lassiter´s jaw, working almost constantly. Gus, so quiet and yet so anxious and scared for his friend´s life. Henry still couldn´t understand, how Juliet could ever insist on letting Shawn die.

"It was his choice." he hears her words again, hollow and empty, just like her eyes. "He wanted it. We should respect that. And accept it."

But accepting had never been Henry´s greatest asset. He was his son, for cry out loud. And he couldn´t allow this to end like this. This hadn´t been meant to happen. Never. Never in this universe.

Of course he´d called the ambulance, of course he´d raged for them to save his only son. And oh god how long this night had been, how often had he jumped, when a nurse had walked by, as if he couldn´t wait to finally get the news at last, that it had been for nothing. That Shawn was dead. And maybe, on some level, Henry had even wanted this, knowing that Juliet had been right after all. Maybe the attempt to save his life had been nothing more than his conscious try to at least keep up the facade of fatherly duty. Even if he knew better.

When the word had reached them at last, with the early beams of sunlight shining through the windows, it had been a shock, and it had been one Henry had not expected anymore.

Alive.

This word alone had made his world spin, all over again. For the better or the worst he hadn´t been able to tell. And somehow he still can´t say if he´s happy or devastated by the fact that his son is still on this earth.

They´d allowed to see him, and Shawn´s wrists and ankles had been bound, so tight as if they were afraid he could try what he´d done earlier that day, one more time, even in his half dead state. But of course he didn´t. He was the same old Shawn they had all known for so long, all his life in Henry´s and Gus´ case. But was it real?

Henry had stood there, while all the others had cried and laughed happily over Shawn´s recovery. Even Lassiter had smirked, relieved. Everyone had been happy. Everyone. And he´d just stood there, unable to say only one word.

He´d seen his son´s eyes, and if he´s totally honest with himself now, he can´t remember anything that would have shown him anyone else in those eyes but Shawn. His son. And yet, he´d been totally paralyzed. Their eyes had met, several times, and Shawn had definitely asked him, without words, to come to him, just like the others.

But it never happened. Something in Henry had just refused to move.

Maybe it still does. Maybe this is the reason why he´s not answering the door now, when it knocks.

The doctors can tell him all they want. About suppressing the dark personality after this battle with himself, and the shot he fired at himself. About symbolically killing the demonic side of himself, by conscious decision, and a little help from Lassiter´s gun. About therapy and tests and all that scientific psychological crap. But something inside Henry will never be able to see this man as the same, ever again.

His son has died that night in Juliet´s apartment. Maybe even much longer ago. When he´d been eighteen? Fifteen? Henry doesn´t know anymore. Memory has become deceptive lately.

He´s not sure anymore if he remembers correctly that night in the hospital, after Shawn had just barely escaped death. Or the day in court months and uncountable tests later, when the jury finally declared him a free man, on probation but free, to live his life as a cured, sane person again. Henry isn´t sure anymore if he doesn´t interpret the smile on Shawn´s face wrong now, seeing it through the eyes of a marked man. Hasn´t his son every right to be relieved at the verdict? He got his life back after all.

No, Henry thinks to himself now, as the door gets opened cautiously. It´s not the worst that could have happened. And maybe, just maybe, they all could really pick up their lives again at last. And maybe Juliet was right to make him agree to this meeting. After over a year it is about time. Isn´t it?

He turns around, and faces the man standing in his living room. Juliet waits behind him at the door, tensed, and expecting. After a while, she just closes the door behind herself, and gives them time, to talk it through. But somehow Henry already knows that they won´t be talking. Not for long.

**...**

"How was it?" Juliet asks, when Shawn drops into the passenger seat, but his face already tells her. "I´m sorry."

"It´s not your fault." he takes her hand, resting on his leg, and squeezes, betraying his own words with the desperate gesture.

When he tells her it´s okay, she knows it´s not. Still she doesn´t say anything. She knows them both for too long to argue, when they don´t want to argue any longer. It would probably hurt him even more, if she´d try. This attempt of bringing them together has been her last hope.

But maybe some things are just not meant to be. And after all that has happened, who can blame any of them? It´s a miracle that they´re all still alive, so maybe it´s best to leave it at that, and not hope for more than this sort-of-happy end.

Eventually she enters the gear and drives off, leaving Henry´s house behind, slowly but steadily. Maybe this is the last time that they´ve come here altogether. And maybe this is just the way a story like this has to end. With some sacrifices that just can´t be avoided.  
But she still has Shawn, and he´s still the same man she´s fallen in love with years ago, and that alone is a reason for her to enjoy this day, no matter what they left behind at Henry´s. The sun is up and the day is friendly, so full of life and new hope for the future.

Shawn´s smile is not as bright and lighthearted anymore as it used to be. But in some way this is good. If it had been, she might have been worried about him. Might have believed that something unhealthy was still working in his mind. But of course he remembers and this memory sometimes clouds his pleasure.

But only sometimes. Not today. Not now that they´re strolling down the street, hand in hand, glancing at people and windows, just like a totally normal couple. And the little scratch on Shawn´s wrist is nothing to be worried about, even though Juliet can´t remember him having this before they went to Henry´s.

But she´s sure there is a perfectly rational reason for that. One that she doesn´t want to worry about right now. Not now while they eat an ice cream, just like a totally normal couple. And Shawn buys her a pair of earrings, just like every normal boyfriend would do.

Like the not totally normal boyfriend that he is, he gets himself something too. A small unobtrusive necklace, made of brown leather. Juliet frowns at the symbol he´s chosen.

"A tomahawk?" she asks, looking at him. "I didn´t know you were into this Indian stuff."

He simply smiles at her, and shrugs a shoulder. "Never too late to try something new in life." he tells her.

_And I definitely have to try something new from now on,_ he adds in his mind. _The old method will cause too much attention. But as I said. It´s never too late. Never. _

When he lays an arm around Jules´ waist and leads her away down the street, a mirror image, seen by no one but him, is left behind, beating powerless against the surface of his prison. But not a single one of those beats is heard by anyone that passes by.

~~ THE END ~~


End file.
